Display systems are often used to display panoramic images that extend beyond the field of view of a human user. For example, imaging and display systems are often used to increase the user's awareness of their surroundings by displaying a panoramic image of the user's surroundings using images captured at multiple or wide angles around the user. In another example, virtual image displays such as video gaming systems often provide a panoramic view of a virtual scene to a user.
When displaying panoramic images to a user, a full 360 degree panoramic image is desirable. However, it can be difficult to display a full 360 degree field of view to a human user without overly distorting the image and/or providing the image in a way that is confusing or overly complicated for the user to comprehend. This can be particularly disadvantageous in dangerous situations such as combat situations or firefighting situations when the user is already receiving large amounts of stimuli under stressful conditions.
Conventional 360 degree panoramic image displays typically use a very large display to accommodate a full resolution view of all of the image data or use a highly distorting fish eye view to compress the image data for display. Large displays can be unwieldy, heavy, and expensive and the user's awareness can be reduced with a simple large display image because the human eye cannot take in the entire display at once (e.g., the image display exceeds the visual range of the human eye). Overly distorted views such as fish-eye displays can cause fatigue, disorientation and difficulties with zooming and tracking of displayed objects.
Thus, there is a need in the art for comprehensible panoramic image displays.